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Cenacle - In hidden crypts and dark vaults, cenacles of secret religion meet to keep their flame alive.

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Cenacle - April 2007

Do you know how much it is true?

April 30th 2007 03:08

Do you know how much it is true?

I loved not having a word from you

I loved you when you kept me waiting for a token

I longed for your voice when you had not spoken

Now that you have, a spell is broken.

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Posted By: nagster - Category: Jottings

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The Secret Sharer by Joseph Conrad

April 28th 2007 04:35

Joseph Conrad Souce : Joseph Conrad Society of America

My history with Joseph Conrad has been an uncertain one. I never liked his most famous works like Nostromo and Lord Jim but his lesser known works like Under Western Eyes are my favorites. The Secret Sharer is usually coupled with Heart of Darkness : the later is the more famous work but I care very little about it but the former is my personal favorite. Also, it was a pleasant surprise when I got to know that Conrad wrote The Secret Sharer, to take a break from the considerable difficulties he had during the composition of Under Western Eyes.

The Secret Sharer is the tale of a young captain who mans an unfamiliar ship and an unfriendly crew, somewhere in the gulf of Siam. He is also the youngest on board (except one). In the very beginning he tells us that he is "somewhat of a stranger to myself" and wonders " how far I should turn out faithful to that ideal conception of one's own personality every man sets up for himself." He will find out exactly how.

One night he chooses to keep the lookout, officially to help his tired crew, an unusual decision in itself. He finds a man floating in the sea, hanging to a ladder of his ship. The captain helps him up. The man's called Legatt and was a chief mate on a different ship called Sephora, where he killed an infuriatingly unhelpful ruffian during a storm and was therefore arrested and kept confined to a cabin for some weeks. He is now a fugitive, desperately running away from the ship's crew.

The captain hides Legatt in his bunker and the stealthiness of this act inspires the first true signs of leadership in him, as he acts to avoid his crew's suspicions. When Sephora's skipper comes aboard clearly suspicious that his ship is hiding the fugitive, he not only makes sure that the suspicion is unconfirmed but also weaves a possibility of Legatt's death and provides for a future cover. Finally, he performs some dangerous maneouvres to help Legatt escape.

The resmblance of Legatt to the captain, whom the captain keeps calling "my double" or my double self", has been called ambiguous. I don't think it is. Legatt does not resemble the captain except superficially ( their age, their hair). It is in the consciousness of his crew, or in the obsessive fantasising of that consciousness by the captain, that they would look similar. After all, his crew does not know him yet and does not appreciate his individuality and might as well confuse him with somebody else who is in a marginally similar shape. It is by indulging in a subversive campaign against that omnipotent collective, his crew, that he begins to wield power over them.

I also think that the entire act is premeditated. The captain knows the rumours beforehand and expressly makes sure he is on the lookout and not others, just to provide for the possibility. But why?

As an analogy, imagine a young officer sent on a mission to a war and who hears that a fellow marine had done something awful ( like Haditha "massacre"), something which the so-called civilised world will not condone. And uncertain of his own first command, would he not sympathise with that marine who must have come from the same background as his? "A jury of tradesmen" will not understand it and will rush to judgement and pounce on the incident. But "to be faithful to the ideal conception of his personality", will he not wish to help that disgraced marine, his other self, escape from the clutches of the brute law, to choose and carry his own "punishment" ?

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Posted By: nagster - Category: Classics

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Chocolat by Joanne Harris

April 26th 2007 07:47

Chocolat by Joanne Harris

I first came to know about Chocolat only after the movie based on the novel was nominated for the Oscars. I read the plotline in some paper and for years I kept dreaming about it. It was such a wonderful idea ! I then saw the movie. While not a masterpiece, it was neveretheless good. One day while shopping, I chanced on the book. The blurb on the book said, "Is this the best book ever written?" and I was wholeheartedly willing to acquiesce. I gave in and bought the book.

I wish I hadn't. I wish I had not read it. I wish I had kept kept ruminating on the idea in my mind forvever. It was not to be and I came to ruin a very special feeling.

Joanne Harris's novel, Chocolat, is about a vagrant mother, Vianne Rocher and her daughter, who arrive in a new town where parochialism and religious sentiment both run high, where the local priest, Father Reynaud, has a commanding power over his flock and keeps them under strict religious lock and key Vianne has a gift for chocolate making and she opens a patisserie, a thing unheard of in the village. She also has a knack of telling who likes what and soon draws a circle of unhappy souls who like to hang around her cafe. She inspires a lot of tiny insurrrections and comes under the eye of the priest who thinks that chocolate is too tempting for his parishioners to resist and blames Vianne for spreading insubordination. Soon, it is a duel between the two where the priest imposes a stricter moral code on his village to counter Vianne's ever more exorbitant creations in chocolate. Time for a showdown.

Harris does not have a talent for converting idea into incident or for story-telling. The novel unfolds without any revelation and runs morosely. But her worst failing is that she is so constrained by an academic femininity that she is unable to look at the world, leave alone men, with any sort of meaningful vision. She can neither draw from the real world nor can give reality to her own imagination. In the end, even though she desperately tries to be a projected Vianne Rocher, she ends up being a Father Reynaud. What a waste of a brilliant idea!

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Posted By: nagster - Category: Other Fiction

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Heart of Stars by Kate Forsyth

April 25th 2007 09:01

Heart of Stars by Kate Forsyth

Kate Forsyth's Heart of Stars completes the Rhiannon's Ride trilogy, itself a continuation of Witches of Eileanan series. Rhiannon is a half-satyricon, born to a satyricon and a man, who fails to grow a horn. Desperate that the herd will kill her, she kills one of their prisoners, tames a winged horse and escapes. She is caught by Leuwen's family, who find out that the man she killed was a king's soldier, so they decide to take her to the court and Leuwen falls in love with her. Along the way they get stuck in a castle where an evil Lord Malvern is trying to raise his dead sons trhough necromancy. In the second book, Rhiannon is thrown into the prison and Leuwen, under the spell of a love potion concocted by Olwynne, forgets about her. There is lots of court intrigue going on and two malevolent spirits from the past still trying to get their lives back amke deals with disgruntled characters.

The second book was fun because there is so much injustice piled up against Rhiannon, it makes you cheer for her. The first book was strictly alright; even though Rhiannon is entertaining, the rest fo the setup isn't. Necromancy which forms the basis of this series is not terribly exciting and the fantasy world that Forsyth creates is not all that imaginative either.

In Heart of Stars, Lord Malvern has kidnapped Olwynne and her brother, to sacrifice them to an evil spirit called Margrit of Arran, who in turn promised Malvern that she will bring his sons back from the dead. Meanwhile, the spell for resurrection is written in a magic book but an evil spirit called Bran has wrapped that up in such a way that whoever reads it will have to go to the past and resurrect him or else go mad.

Rhiannon was released from her prison at the end of the second book and in this one, she is given the task of rescuing Olwynne and Owein. This track is supposed to be the main plot but Forsyth comes to it only intermittently and in the end, it is resolved without any great heroism on Rhiannon's part. Rhiannon was the only reason this series works even moderately and her less than stellar part is a dampener. A major portion of the novel is about a bunch of people who go back in time to tackle Bran's spell, a pointless exercise since Bran is raised from the dead and killed again in the same chapter. Another major portion is spent on court intrigue and the new queen Bronwyn but Bronwyn is never a compelling a character as Rhiannon is even though in the end she succeeded to arouse my sympathies.

A trilogy is supposed to be a cohesive unit where the final novel provides a satisfying climax. Rather, Heart of Stars reads like those soap operas where after an initial success additional plot lines are extended and spun and resolved without coming to any point, just to continue the series. It is a disappointing end to a rousing middle and an interesting beginning.

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Posted By: nagster - Category: Fantasy

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Thoughts on Harry Potter and the Order of Phoenix trailer

April 23rd 2007 02:34

The extended trailer for the Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix was released yesterday and here are my thoughts. I just realised that the story of the Phoenix might actually work out much better for the screen version. They'd have to edit a lot of stuff and Phoenix was quite flabby. But, imagine all those occlumency lessons, detentions with Umbridge and Dumbledore's Army scenes. Harry's going though quite a lot in this installment and we will all be hooked to the screens.Simply put there is too much emotion in this one, without the unnecessary distractions of the book (Grawp, Grimmauld Place). But judging from the trailer, I didn't think I like it all that well. It seemed to me that it suffers from the same problem the Goblet of Fire movie suffered from. Harry Potter is a world of its own. It's a bit archaic but it is a fantasy world. We want it o be like that. But, they seem to be turning it into a MTV style music video kind of thing. Just look at the scene on the train station where Voldemort appears in a dark pinstripe suit. Voldemort is a wizard, for godsakes, he won't wear that muggle clothing. It's not a faux pas there. That small scene speaks for the whole. It's as if the entire movie is stylised from that perspective. Goblet of Fire was, and that's why I didn't like it. Simply put these movies lack a credible projection of Hogwarts. I might be wrong. One can only tell after watching the movie, but why does it have to release only a week before the last book? Why can't it release sooner to keep us occupied till the book comes?

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Posted By: nagster - Category: Cinema

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Thaleia, Third Boook of Herodotus

April 22nd 2007 10:57

Thaleia, the Muse of Comedy source: theoi.com

After a careful description of Egypt, Herodotus returns to story of Persian dynasty in this book. Its central figure is Cambysses. Just as Cyrus is revered, Cambysses is abhorred. He is an archetype of a mad king, a capricious monarch who would stoop to do anything get power. The Persian imperial raid on Egypt is condemned. Central to this antagonistic interpretation of Cambysses are doubts about the validity of his ascension to power and his desecration of Apis bull and thereby, the Egyptian religion.

After all, even Cyrus is a imperialist who had marched over various kingdoms, but we know from other sources that he was careful to preserve and respect the religions of the conquered kingdoms. Is this the motive behind the two vastly different impressions of these two men preserved here?

Cambysses decides to invade Egypt when a well-known mercenary brings the tidings of an alternative route to Egypt through Arabia, rather than the well-known adn well-watched route through Syria. After a great battle, Egypt is taken and several expeditions against adjacent countries like Carthage and Libya are planned. In fact, an army sent against the oracle of Ammon got lost in the desert, a fact which provides the springboard of The Lost Army of Cambysses.

So far so good. But, once in Memphis, comes the desecration of Apis bull and the narrative changes. Cambysses then marries his own sister and later kills her, executs Persian nobles with little reason and ransacks ancient tombs and temples. No wonder people talk that he growing mad.

As he is growing madder in Egypt, a Magian conspiracy brews in Persia. Cambysses ascended the throne after killing his brother Smerdis and therefore, a magian priest props up a pseudo-Smerdis and declares him the true king. In the resulting confusion, Cambysses dies childless, heirless and advising his retainers not to let the Magians or Medes retake the power from under the Persians. The rest of the book describes how a small band of Persians dethrone the pretender and the ascension of Darius, resulting in a Babylonian revolt cruelly crushed by the new king.

I cannot but wonder how much the depiction of Cambysses as a mad king owed to the dynastic struggle and the Magian agenda. The parallels to recent events are uncanny.

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Posted By: nagster - Category: Classics

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Hamlet's Rejoinder

April 21st 2007 10:52

Yesterday, I wrote about Vtech massacre. There is a passage in Hamlet which has been haunting me since I first read it. I should like to quote it in this context, for it befits the moral situation of this whole sad business.

Hamlet: Aye, marry, is't,
But to my mind, though I am native here,
And to the manner born, it is a custom
More honored in the breach than the observance;
This heavy-headed revel, east and west,
Makes us traduced and taxed of other nations;
They clepe us drunkards, and with swinish phrase
Soil our addition, and indeed, it takes
From our achievements; though performed at height:
The pith and marrow of our attribute;
So oft' it chances in particular men,
That for some vicious mole of nature in them,
As in their birth wherein they are not guilty,
(Since nature cannot choose his origin,)
By their o'ergrowth of some complexion,
Oft' breaking down the pales and forts of reason,
Or, by some habit, that too much o'erleavens
The form of plausive manners, that these men
Carrying, I say, the stamp of one defect
Being nature's livery, or fortune's star,
His virtues else be they as pure as grace,
As infinite as man may undergo,
Shall in the general censure take corruption
From that particular fault; the dram of evil
Doth all the noble substance of a doubt,
To his own scandal.

I am not a native nor manner born to America but this is what I would quote in solidarity with that country.
The text is is taken from this site.

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Posted By: nagster - Category: Poetry, Comment

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Thoughts on VTech Massacre

April 19th 2007 09:06

My theory is that America is not a hegemony but rather a hegemonised agent. Sounds crazy? Let's look at the international press coverage of the recent Virgina Tech massacre. There were few, if any, statements of sympathy and shock. Just like Katrina before where a triumphant BBC questioned something like this: " Why should a rich country like the US be given any aid?" There is a sense of lynching about these events; it's as if America like Hester Prynne stands on a scaffolding wearing a scarlet A and the mob round her, certain of their rectitude, pronounce judgment.

Remember such massacres are not confined to America alone. See this entry for details. None of these other events evoke this kind of carnivorous reponse.

When the VTech massacre happened, the international press round the world debated about gun control in America. Isn't this a domestic issue of the US? So why should a German newspaper or an Italian TV station be concerned about it? Don't they routinely argue that America is a bully and should stop acting the policeman? But by interjecting themselves in an American tragedy (where as outsiders they should either commiserate or be indifferent) and trying to influence the American debate, aren't they acting the bully and the policeman themselves?

The gun-control debate in America has no international ramifications, so when the internatioal press displays so much passion about it, more so, in fact, than they show for debates in their own countries, it is evident of the fact their internal mechanism is conditioned by building an internal fantasy which imagines America as a barren untouched piece of land, ripe for a new colonization, a colony of "ideas". In this fantasy, their own pet solution to world peace is acted out. But they are not American citizens and are not able to translate this fantasy into reality, hence their subsequent disenchantment with America.

This is the first stage. This is superseded by the later stage when they identify with a particular political party or an ideological sect in America so completely, that their fantasies turn to imagining political outcomes conducive to their ideological needs.

Imagine the boost to this mentality if in fact there is a willing ear to be found in the US which will take its every pronouncement as a gospel ?A sect which, because its own proffered solutions have not always been acted upon ( as a democracy, the US would not not end up a monostate), begins to imagine it as a vacuous empty waste land? If these two parties became aware of each other? The fantasy begins to have a real consequences.

Like a BDSM orgy, a ritual of contempt and gratification is enacted. It is in this way, the European intelligentsia in concert with the American Left begins to reinforce behavior and take America to a place where Americans themselves may not want to go. The institution of hegemony is complete.

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Posted By: nagster - Category: Comment

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What I am reading

April 18th 2007 07:11

I am so sorry I haven't posted anything worthwhile here; but that's because I haven't read anything worthwhile recently. Recently means, in the last ten days. Still, I have some plans for redemption though.

I bought three huge volumes of Journey to the West though. I have wanted to read itfor so long. Someday i am going to own Outlaws of the Marsh and the Three Kingdoms as well. It's going to rock.

I haven't progressed in Herodotus beyond what I've blogged here. I am in the middle of Kate Forsyth's Heart of Stars , the last book of Rhiannon's Ride trilogy. It's not as interesting as the earlier two books were, mainly because there is not much of Rhiannon as yet. Till now the only entertaining moment in the book comes from her. Still plodding through the book.

I have Calvin's Institues on my desk, since I don't knwo when but I haven't brought myself as yet to read them. I have re-read The Goblet of Fire once again just to get that Harry Potter feeling. By the way, I have kate Forsyth's Dragonclaw with me and I ahve gone through the first chapter, it feels like I have read it before, only I can't remember ever reading it and I don't even know what happens next not even sketchily. How horrible it is. To forget something so completely that nothing can bring it back.

I have read Matthew Reilly's Seven Ancient Wonders long ago but I can't bring myself to review it. It's also lying on my desk, god knows, since when. Actually it's a book of my friend and I have to return it.

Also, there is a science fiction book called Iron Sunrise by Charles Stross which I had read till half and never got myself to finishing it. I might make an effort and complete that book this week.

Besides, there are lots of e-books which I have downloaded but never finished. All heavy duty stuff. Must finish them too.

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Posted By: nagster - Category: Jottings

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300: Prepare for Glory

April 5th 2007 20:03

Gerald Butler digs deep in 300

Truth to tell, I did not like the promos of 300 and was waiting to find out, in sad resignation, whether I would like the movie or not. I knew all the right reasons( call them "ideological") for liking it, but personally I thought I wouldn't. I am relieved to confess; it is not the best movie I ever saw or anything like that, but I did it like it very much.

300 is a retelling of the famous battle of Thermopylae where a couple of hundred of Greek warriors held at bay the huge Persian army that was swooping down on Greek mainland, after conquering the Asia Minor. The warriors had succeeded to hold the Persian army in its tracks for three days. This itself gave a huge tactical advantage for the fragmented Greeks, to join their forces and face the enemy together. It also had become a memorable event in Greek mind, an event capable of rousing the complacent Greeks to battle.

This incident has been adapted many times before and this time it is used by Frank Miller for his graphic novel. I haven't read the novel but 300 is supposed to be a loyal adaptation, using the same technique that went into the making of Sin City and Through the Scanner Darkly. Like all cartoons, the method here is stylization and exaggeration to which Miller adds a few touches of fantastical whimsy. This means that the Greek heroes are all all extreme examples of beautiful manhood; the corrupt and the villainous are fantastically deformed; the Persians are black or brown and lecherous and Xerxes is ten foot tall and effeminate. Both the dialogue and the imagery are pared down to a fundamental distinction between good and evil and that distinction is never compromised.

The story is told by a general of King Leonidas of Sparta who is determinted to take the battle to the Persians who are looming over the horizons, but the political establishment of Sparta is undecided on the matter. Early in the movie, Leonidas kicks the Persian envoy, who demands that he surrender, into a dark well, a scene that propulses the movie into high gear of action. His own wife, Gorga is solidly behind him. When Leonidas doesn't get the required sanction from the Oracle( was it Delphi?), due to corruption we are told, he takes a loyal band of 300 warriors with him. He has a secret plan; with these warriors he hopes to hold the Persian army at bay in Thermopylae. Leonidas knows he won't survive the battle but he goes anyway hoping that their certain death would provide enough pscyhological fuel for the rest of Greece. How right he is!

The rest of the movie is about their battles for the three days and also about Queen Gorga's uphill task to convince Sparta to send any army behind the king.

As I've said, the movie kicks into life in the Persian enovy scene and rarely loses momentum thereafter. I felt the "beautiful death scene" in the climax was a bit too abrupt; Gerald Butler and Lena Headey took time to grown on me, mainly because of their accents but a few minutes into the movie, I really liked them. Butler really digs deep and makes Leonidas quite fascinating and I was even moved by some of his speeches toward the end. As for the visual imagery, one can only say that this is the stuff dreams are made of.

Is 300 a neocon movie? Well, it depends on what 'neocon" means. It's an unabashedly pro-war movie; not just the one in Iraq although that too can be included, but the creators definitely have a wider concept of West under siege premise and the possible confrontation between the West and the East definitely colours their thinking. Neither do they hesistate to draw explicit parallels. Some have pointed out the line, "Freedom is not free," used by Gorga to rally the support of war, as a neocon reference. Actually, a more germane reference would be the line uttered by the corrupt Spartan, " Leonidas is an idealist but I am a realist." Neo-conservatism tried to supplant realism as a politcal doctrine.

The movie goes even farther than any neocon underpinnings when Leonidas says that he is fighting for freedom and against "mysticism and tyranny." There is no doubt that Sparta stands for America and the Persians stand for its Islamofascist enemy and as such, 300 represents the war cry America never made artistically after it was attacked on 9/11. Therefore, the movie is a vehicle for much deeper and more turbulent emotions and philosophy that even the neocon movement has not managed to tap in.

The Brotherhood, of course, went nuts over it and tried to stop it as much as possible. First, there was a widespread hysteria, just before its release, if the movie was a neocon agitprop. One European reporter even wondered if it was Leonidas or Xerxes, who was modeled on President Bush. If that hysteria was displayed by one gang, the other gang immediately stepped in to assure us that 300 couldn't be a neocon movie because it was too darn silly. It made for fine viewing but was just too elementary. When the movie opened, they tried yet another trick. After describing the movie's technique in minute detail, they accused the movie of being too cartoony. That that was the whole point was somehow conveniently forgotten. The usual historicity card was drawn but not played to a great extent.

On the whole, the Brotherhood did sound genuinely confused on how to attack it and hence, they gleefully let Iran cover for them, when it stepped in saying that America was waging pscychological warfare with it. Still, the movie is a big hit and we have one more huge success on the cultural front after last year's Pursuit of Happyness.

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Posted By: nagster - Category: Cinema

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Landscape and Memory by Simon Schama

April 5th 2007 07:40

Simon Schama's Landscape and Memory

When I picked up Simon Schama's Landscape and Memory, I knew it was famous but did not know much else. It's supposed to be an environmental history or something like that. I couldn't care less. If you whisper the word the 'environment in my ear', you can put me to sleep. Still, I picked the book to see what it was about and I am glad I did.

Schama's main concern is to point out that men have always been influenced by their environment and it was not left for the enivornmentalism movement to suddenly point out what nobody had noticed before and base their religious utopia/dystopia on it. Every political structure from American democracy to Germany's Nazism was intimately related to the environment on which it was founded. Schama's main task was to flesh out this politcal-environmental commensalism and chart its course through the history and point out how much of our present day mindscape itself is a remnant of this relationship. This, he supposes, will enable him to ward off the environmentalist's claim that a democracy will not be geared towards caring about environment and hence some kind of heavy-handed paternalistic state is required. A person like me would grumble that a democracy like out is geared towards enviroment more than it needs be.

It is a sprawling book which takes us into unknown territories, uncharted narratives and forgotten imaginations and points out the tenuous links between remote cultures( remote to us and to each other) which might seem unrealted on their face.The long narrative is divided into four parts: Wood, Water, Rock and Wood, Water and Rock.

There is a reason to read a book like this. It makes you acquainted with bit players in history and it takes you through a bylanes rather than the highways of history, giving you a different perspective. For example, if you read the official histories of Nazi Germany, you might not pick up on their reverence for Tacitus or the Black Forest, but reading an exhaustive account of it here, gives you a diffferent window into the soul of that monstrous phenonmenon. (I do not say it mitigates Nazism and Schama himself is very scrupulous not to go there.)

It is not necessary or advisable to read it at one sitting. Over many evenings, reading and meditating on the many vistas it opens before us, is the thing.

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Posted By: nagster - Category: Non-Fiction

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